Constraining the African pole of rotation

Abstract

In the absence of well defined transform faults in the East African rift system for constraining the plate kinematic reconstruction, the pole of relative motion for the African (Nubian) and Somalian plates has been determined from residual motion. If Africa and Somalia are to continue to drift apart along the East African rift system (which would then evolve into a series of ridges offset by transform faults) then incipient transform faults that may reflect the direction of relative motion should already be in place along the East African rift system. The incipient transforms along the East African rift system are characterized by shear zones, such as the Zambezi shear zone in the south and the Aswa and Hamer shear zones in the north. Some of these shear zones have been associated with recent strike-slip faulting in the NW-SE direction during periods of earthquakes. Provided that these, consistently NW-SE oriented, strike-slip movements in the shear zones give the direction of relative motion of the adjacent plates, then they can be used to constrain the position of the Africa-Somalia Euler pole. Due to the fact that identifying transform faults in the East African rift system is difficult and because the genesis of transform faults characterizing a plate boundary at an inception stage is not well known, the discussion here is limited to the northern segment of the East African rift system where shear zones are better characterized by the existing geophysical data. The characterizing features vary with latitude, indicating the complexity of the problem of the genesis of transform faults. I believe, however, that the relatively well defined intra-continental transform fault in the northern East African rift system, which is characterized by strike-slip faulting and earthquakes, constrains the pole of relative motion for the African and Somalian plates to a position near 1.5°S and 29.0°E.